Fidelity
by Olive nerd
Summary: Before reading: Sygin is a goddess and the loyal wife of Loki in Norse Mythology. But in this fanfic, she's a servant who Loki loves. This fanfic doesn't exactly follow the legendary myths. Charles Xavier and Erik are modern newlyweds who stumble into the past. And, Sygin is someone else, too.


Fidelity

**Before reading: Sygin is a goddess and the loyal wife of Loki in Norse Mythology. But in this fanfic, she's a servant who Loki loves. This fanfic doesn't exactly follow the legendary myths. Charles Xavier and Erik are modern newlyweds who stumble into the past. I do not own any of the X-Men or Thor movies. They're too brilliant! **

"Your coyness defines you." King Odin loomed over the young woman, impressed with humility until he sought the security of swearing. "If I was to entrust every need of my queen unto you, would you solemnly swear yourself against all acts of wickedness to protect her until your demise?"

"I swear."

Loyal as well was she. She would do well, Odin mused. He was so sure of it. She was orphaned now after her late parents were eradicated with the many other frost giants. But unlike the offspring of his foes he pitied, she had encountered his secrets and swore to keep them. She was a rarity, or more of a delicacy, too meek and yet too useful to set aside.

Indeed, if his mischievous son were witty and loyal, which could override Thor's strength and ambition, he'd have his sporting chance for the throne. However, Odin was not ignorant enough to tell Loki or her the truth, at least not until they could digest the truth.

Returning his attention to the woman, Odin cleared his throat and boomed, "Do you swear upon the Nine Realms?"

"I swear!"

"And do you, Sygin, swear to protect this entire family from all forces of malignancy with the privilege of protection and love to your estate?"

Either Odin was feeling the reins of his growing age, or the woman's eyes grew glassy. A home was what she desired, this he predicted. That was what made the private ceremony all the more essential for Queen Frigga.

"I swear." She dipped her head lowly, never minding the earth brown tresses streaming down her face. Tis a pity any maiden would vow for something lower than her mien grants, but she knew her place, as now did his majesty.

"Then I Odin, king of Asgard, entitle you head servant of my beloved queen, Frigga, to love, to protect, to honor, to serve, and to guard with your life as well as pardon and respect equally those among her, including myself and my sons, Thor and Loki."

Right as she bowed again to her king, footsteps obstructed her concentration, and her footing didn't save her fall. Her knees tumbled and feet skittered to the floors, and laughter broke out, sly and quiet laughter. When Sygin glanced up at the intruder, she could only provide a simple, low bow. Brothers Thor and Loki arrived to train.

Their feast that night was meager, as well as the falsehood Loki conjured over his plates of entrails when he finished. Even the god of mischief embraced a ravenous stomach similar to Volstagg's once in a while. He had recently shared a dispute with his older brother and would have much preferred seclusion from anyone else. But of course, his father allowed a servant almost always for unwanted company.

The servant of the hour was perfect as a background maid, which didn't intrigue him in the least. All servants stayed silent unless they'd prefer punishment to patience. But now, Loki couldn't grasp why he was so fidgety and still sitting after eating mountains of meat with another unimportant maid close by.

As unworthy as humans, Loki theorized, both lower meat only worthy of scrounging, plain and dull and short living- Her eyes targeted his, and Asgard busted his narrow mind into possessiveness.

Blue as any sky they were, twins in their own creation, and striking him with spells of injustice Loki couldn't describe as wrong or right. Eyes portrayed individuality to Loki; hers portrayed that and power and knowledge and superiority, anything and everything a servant, maid, or mortal could never doubt wanting.

"Finished, your majesty?"

Loki sneered but nodded, noting to himself to control his jealousy. He was already in a brutal battle with Thor; he didn't need someone else to appear as if they possessed grandeur and ambition over himself, especially not when the position of future heir is dubious and leaving him with a potentially fair chance of earning it. No, he needed focus and agility before, during, and after training, even at supper time.

"Yes, thank-you."

Sygin collected every chalice, dish, and utensil in sight, keeping her eyes steadily on the table. One of the first rules a servant in Asgard must've remembered for life was to never ever look any royal in the eye. Frankly, she desired jeering at the moment and would've rather performed an abhorrent free fall to the cosmos, but she had herself to look out for, and Sygin, one way or another, always stuck to every oath she swore.

"Your eyes are like glaciers."

She almost dropped four plates on her way out to the kitchens. Why oh why must he stall, she hissed to herself before turning to the young prince and bowing respectfully.

"Your highness?"

Loki's eyes prominently bugged out when her eyes accidentally caught his. She took notice of this and bowed again, this time lower, in order to hide her flurried look. Not one being, however, has achieved with hiding from the god of mischief.

He smiled crookedly after catching her quite off guard. "No servant shall look his or her superior in the eye.' He couldn't stop himself from laughing softly. "Shall he? Shall she?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, sir." Playing ignorant went usually well with a polite tone and curtsy, but blasted; Loki was smarter than Thor's friends. "With all due respect, are you endeavoring to have attention?"

Loki stood up and gestured for her to follow him. Being a mere servant of the queen, his mother, she didn't have a horse in the race, any say in any choice. So without a word, she loyally followed him, as she would even after servitude due to her untamed inquisitiveness.

"I now pronounce you god and wife." Emerald orbs met sapphire orbs as a passionate embrace was shared followed by a soul-swelling kiss. Once they released each other, Loki kissed Sygin's forehead and breathed in the tangy scent of her brunette hair, and Sygin sighed contently and burrowed her face close to his rising and falling chest. Wedlock kept them together presumably for all eternity, for Sygin's life was no longer short-lived and hapless; she would now forever be a goddess with wonders beyond simple pleasures and dreams.

Then after a fortnight, Loki said goodbye. Still as loyal as ever, Sygin waited patiently until her love would return to her. Even though he offered no explanation why after leaving, King Odin entitled her as the goddess of fidelity. She had to trust them for this, and additionally, love placed her away from time's importance.

He finally showed himself for training, which lasted for a year alone. Sygin feared this. His journey cost him time; Thor trained in all those years when Loki was absent, providing the thunder god a conspicuous advantage.

Sure enough, Thor was future ruler. But then, threats from the frost giants poured in to steal the Casket of Ancient Winters. Determined to fight his own battles, Thor childishly threw himself into combat with his friends and Loki, putting all of their lives in grave danger. Fortunately, Odin was alerted by Heimdall. Because of his conceit and his commencing an unwanted fight, Thor was stripped from his own powers and banished to Earth, thereby a mortal and outcast.

Loyal as ever, Sigyn followed Loki to the room housing the Casket.

"Those frost giants needed power to access Asgard."

Loki jumped at the sound of a voice and, when seeing it was only Sygin, rolled his eyes and scowled at her. Suddenly, his expression softened immensely, and he turned his back away from her.

"Thor's banishment has torn my lovely wife apart. To bed with you, Sygin." He ran his fingers over the Casket, drinking in its surreal glow.

"Loki, if you know what's best for Asgard, for everybody, you will not do this. There's something you must know first before you start acting without thinking. Thor has done this! Look where he is now!"

Power wrenched inside of him, power conjured instinctively through his own mental train and the surges of energy crept from the glowing Casket below his fingertips. It was seething in his grasp, a caged animal not even his blue-eyed Sygin could control.

"That is why you insisted that my brother's banishment was not Father's law," Loki snapped. She shook her head behind him. The same game was on replay with him, building assumptions and her having to tolerate each one.

"This has nothing to do with Thor. You should know that." She showed off her ringed finger.

"Of course not now! Why, we saw what was there with those mortals- his little mistress mortal!"

Her eyes were fresh with tears. Her hands met to wiggle a gaudy diamond ring. "Me- with Thor..." Sygin chuckled and looked at Loki, for the first time in their marriage, murderously. "Foolish bastard child! If you were half the god- half the husband your father is, you would never ever associate me as the common tart!"

"I never said a word about the common tart," Loki sneered. "But you certainly have the makings of a lady of your well-fit description." His smug smile was pasted on even as he turned blue. As he was blue, so was she, and Sygin screamed at both his comment and her transformation.

"What have you done to me?"

"You two-" Odin appeared with a stern but sorrowful look in his eyes. "What happened?"

Loki approached King Odin with an air of suspicion. "The Casket wasn't the only thing you stole back in the frost giants, wasn't it?"

"I - I- Son..." He was distressed, and clearly Odin knew something god and wife did not.

"TELL US!" Sygin stared fearfully at her husband. Such anger was never else shown by Loki until now. In front of them, Odin told them they were children he deported separately from frost giants. Sigyn's parents were killed, and Loki's mother was a mystery. Meanwhile, his father was the frost giants' leader, Laufey. Odin took Loki in as his son and Sygin later as an eternal servant.

Tears swelled in Sygin's eyes once more, loosing their shine to Loki. "Sympathy for a loss wasn't the only reason why you took us in...I lived simply with servants, and a queen wasn't destined to rule on her own... If I had been like Loki, we would've been sent to train with Thor."

The elderly king reached for Sygin's hands, but Loki stepped in-between them. "Don't touch my wife," he warned. "Now what was this about reasons?" He flashed Sygin a questioning look.

"I thought we should preserve peace with the Frost Giants," Odin explained.

Sygin stepped backwards as Loki ascended halfway up the small staircase to where his 'father' stood. But before he could say or act without thinking, Sygin shouted pathetically, "I knew this as well!" She really had no idea or concept of the idea, but it was her only way of keeping both her king and her husband safe.

Loki faced her now instead of the tense king and stomped towards Sygin, pausing to breath deeply before slapping her twice on both cheeks.

"YOU WITH THE REST! LOYAL AS EVER!" His laugh lacked humor, as did his gaze. Loki felt out of place, undesirable, and she was officially the last person to run to for faith. While he gazed at her, Sygin stiffened and sniffled. She knew Loki would've hurt two gods if he chose violence with the king, but it pained her to see him so heartbroken and vulnerable.

Whirlwinds swept behind her; something had been triggered, a portal to some extent. And as Loki lost grip of her, Sygin felt herself tremble and fall and plunge herself into a frightful sleep. A few seconds later, and her reddening cheeks grew pale, and her heart stopped beating and turned cold and numb.

"You know I hated that shade, Erik." The newlyweds exasperatedly sighed together. Both were equally headstrong and determined to walk out of their kitchenette with a favored paint for the plain, white walls in their vacant nursery room.

"You hate every shade of blue," Erik quipped, sipping his cup of dark coffee and typing furiously on his laptop. "Why should any baby be in an orange room, anyway?"

Charles sighed tiresomely and stood up to fetch a bowl for some cereal. "Erik, we've been butchering about this since three a.m., and I'm famished, so let's declare armistice." He shot his husband a fierce glare.

"And to answer your precious question, orange is a warm color of joviality and zealousness, and any shade of blue would depress our daughter."

Erik sniggered as he stood up and ran his index finger across Charles' lips. "You still ignore my cries for a son, don't you, you black widow?"

Charles ceased his hand and kissed its knuckles tenderly. "Every household deserves a lady to refurnish dull atmospheres."

"That's why we have you." Before Charles could openly disagree, Erik locked him into a kiss. Then, fate ruined Erik's perfect timing.

"Do you hear the doorbell," Charles asked between kisses.

"You fantasize," Erik told him, hoping their visitor would leave them, but Charles wouldn't brush someone away so easily.

"Let me get the door, you monster!"

"Why can't I answer it?"

"You are only in your robe."

"Really... You took the time to notice?"

Gently pushing Erik away from him, Charles glared at him, did a double take at the mirror nearest him, and headed down the hallway.

"So sorry for the wait!" Charles dashed to the door to answer the visitor. "How may I help... you?"

A man stood before him, giving him the hardest stare with his peculiar, blazing emerald eyes. He had black hair and wore- well Charles simply couldn't put his outfit to justice. It appeared to be a ridiculous Cosplay costume portraying a Roman or Norse god or hero.

"So this is where my wife is in hiding," the stranger muttered more to himself than Charles. "With two sketchy mortal men-"

"Um, would you like to come inside?" Charles figured this guy was brain dead upstairs and needed somebody's assistance.

The man sneered as if he had insulted him. " If you value your life, you'll step aside."

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," Charles commented lightly.

"Charles!"

"Oh drat," Charles groaned, as Erik rounded himself beside Charles in the doorway and protectively wrapped his right arm around Charles.

"Is this man giving you a hard time?"

"Move aside," the man snapped, clenching his fists. Erik clearly took note of the stranger's threatening disposition and sent Charles a cautionary stare.

"Not yet, Erik." He wanted him to read the man, but Charles only used his mind-reading expertise in emergencies, as did Erik with his metallic abilities.

After all, Charles and Erik were no ordinary couple looking to adopt; they possessed infinitely unstoppable abilities that, when the two were together, could be used for human protection or jeopardy. Being the usually passive mutants they were, they made a pact after their wedding to keep their powers a secret and maintain neutral statuses.

"If you won't hand over my wife, then I won't hesitate to crush your bones, to force you to rise to see them as ashes, and then trade you over to the frost giants!"

"Frost giants?" The telepath paused to think over their situation before asking, "could you repeat that please?"

"Hold on!" Erik decided it was time to do some intervening. "Are you telling me that you think my husband and I kidnapped your wife, and you have the nerve to show up at my front door without a weapon?"

"Precisely so."

Charles heard the faint sound of a gun clicking and lashed at Erik. "Don't," he hissed.

"Then read him," Erik shot back at him. Charles nodded reluctantly and dove into the mind of not any man, but the god of mischief, Loki. He saw and felt Loki's rage when he discovered he wasn't related to the king and queen who raised him and Loki's anguish when he fell into a vast abyss in space.

Out of nowhere, Charles' eyes watered; the words "I now pronounce you god and wife," bashed his eardrums and vision and brain, as did countless years without Loki and later imprisoned in servitude to the dead.

Then it hit him; he wasn't reading Loki's mind anymore but his own.

While Charles was staring curiously at Loki, the mischievous god grinned sardonically at him.

"Ah...ha... This would be hilarious if-" He grabbed Erik by his neck and whirled him across the porch. " -If I came here for only chitchat."

Gripping the doorknob, Charles stayed by the door as he watched Erik be wrestled by the merciless god. He had no strength left to move.

"Why do you stand so blankly?" Loki chortled and kicked Erik multiple times in the chest and abdomen. "It's all coming back, isn't it?"

'Charles...' The telepath brushed his eyes and replied to Erik.

_'There's more to this man that you see, Erik.' _

_'All I see is a future institutionalized patient! Call someone up! Anybody!' _

Loki grinned at the telepath and sauntered over to him. Erik was lying on the freshly cut lawn and coughing up blood. He couldn't have stood up if he wanted to.

"I'd expect you to torture the fragile heart of a handsome mortal man..." He forcibly grabbed Charles' chin so the smaller man would look up at him. "But my dear, to shift into one after death and erase your memories... Tsk! Tsk!"

The memories weighed on his skull, and Loki took pleasure in seeing the telepath visibly shake.

"Y-you are mistaken..." He wished he didn't have to lie out of this, but he had to reach Erik.

"The greatest curse that comes with a telepath is his brain..." Charles was instantly still with a curl of Loki's fingers. "You remember... Come and your mortal will live."

This would not happen. "ERIK!" All of a sudden, Charles couldn't speak after he yelled, and when he caught a glimpse at Erik from over Loki's shoulder, all he saw was blood coating the lawn.

"You lie," Loki whispered harshly, "when it was me who gave you access to these abilities." Both man and deity were lifted off the ground.

"You're not taking me back there-" Charles angrily struggled against the hold binding him, but the glow of a too familiar wedding ring silenced him once more, and Loki defied him with raised eyebrows.

"Of course I am, Sygin! Time is now a new gem to my collection. And now, no mere mortals will deflower our wedlock again!"

Charles winced at the sound of his old name on Loki's lips. "Whatever I am here, I will stay it, be it mortal or any being! True, I'm no loyal now, but I will spend my exile here if it must be done."

Loki laughed at her, hoping for a challenge at his feet. "As your loyal heart desires, Sigyn!"


End file.
